A day after the lone Congress MLA in West Bengal, Bayron Biswas, joined the the Trinamool Congress (TMC), Congress general secretary in charge of Communications Jairam Ramesh expressed the party’s strong disapproval, accusing the TMC of employing “poaching” tactics that do not contribute to strengthening the Opposition’s attempts to form a common alliance against the ruling BJP for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
It rather serves the objectives of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), he said.
Trinamool Congress (TMC) ‘poaching’ the lone Congress MLA in West Bengal ‘is not designed to strengthen’ the opposition’s attempts to form a common alliance against the ruling BJP for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Congress veteran Jairam Ramesh warned on Tuesday, a day after Sagardighi legislator Bayron Biswas joined TMC, the state’s ruling party.
“Three months after he was elected as a Congress MLA in a historic victory Bayron Biswas has been lured away by the TMC in West Bengal. This is a complete betrayal of the mandate of the people of the Sagardighi Assembly Constituency,” tweeted Ramesh.
“Such poaching which has happened earlier in Goa, Meghalaya, Tripura and other states is not designed to strengthen Opposition unity and only serves the BJP’s objectives,” the senior Congress leader added.
Biswas, Congress’s sole MLA in the state assembly, joined the ruling party on Monday, in the presence of TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee.
Biswas’s move has left Congress in a weakened position in the state even as attempts are underway to unite the Opposition and present a formidable challenge to the saffron party in the upcoming 2024 polls.